Archive for the ‘Week in Social Media’ Category
This Week in Social Analytics #41
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Where to Put That Extra Dough in Your Marketing Budget [from Social Media Explorer; written by Jason Spooner]
5 questions to ask before you start spending money on new marketing initiatives
Social Media Marketing Budgets To Double In Next Five Years [Report from Daze Info; written by Shilpa Shree]
Social media spending as a percentage of marketing budgets will increase to more than twofold over the next five years, according to a Duke University Fuqua School of Business survey of US marketers commissioned by the American Marketing Association (AMA). This survey was conducted in February 2013 and included 468 U.S. chief marketing officers.
Powering Predictions With Social Media Data [from AllAnalytics; written by Beth Schultz]
“In the end, social media can really stand on its own and provide insights and a lot of great learning and opportunity, but if you go well beyond just pure brand listening, the potentials are far greater.”
Insight from SXSW: Brands Should Want Advocates, Not Influencers [from Social Media Today; written by Christianna Giordano]
“An influencer is someone will write up a branded post, send out a few tweets and do their tasked outlined in their contract. An advocate, will not only do all those things, but will continuously use the product or brand in their daily lives, insert themselves into relevant conversations concerning the topic, and will fight for the products they love. Both of these types of blogger have their part in the blogosphere, but it is the latter that will make the biggest impact for brands.”
You Got Your Interwebs in My Idiot Tube [from the Austin Chronicle; written by Richard Whittaker]
“The approach was not that there was just a social media department, but every piece of that business, right from the top to the creative teams to the live events staff to the writers to the superstars themselves, now have a stake in telling that story for the fans that really expect it on a 24/7 basis.”
What’s the next excuse? [from KD Paine's PR Measurement Blog; written by KD Paine]
“The truth is in this other revealing statistic: 21% of survey respondents think that measurement isn’t necessary, so lack of standards are just yet another silly excuse not to measure anything.”
This Week in Social Analytics #40
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Advisers benefit from “listening” on social media [from Reuters; written by Beth Pinsker]
“Josh Brown, a financial adviser at New York-based Fusion Analytics who is known as The Reformed Broker to his 35,000-plus Twitter followers, says many of his friends at major brokerage firms regularly visit sites like Twitter, just to keep tabs on the chatter.”
Social Media in the Banking Industry [from Social Media Today; written by David Wittlinger]
“The mental hurdle that bank officers needed to overcome when starting out in social media was the fear of ‘losing control’ of their marketing message. For many of the Marketing Committee members, platforms like Facebook were widely misunderstood. A majority of time at the beginning of this project was spent educating the bank about how social media marketing works (different from traditional media) and how it can effectively be applied to create a deeper loyalty within their customers.”
Twitter Reaction to Events Often at Odds with Overall Public Opinion [from Pew Research Center]
“At times the Twitter conversation is more liberal than survey responses, while at other times it is more conservative. Often it is the overall negativity that stands out. Much of the difference may have to do with both the narrow sliver of the public represented on Twitter as well as who among that slice chose to take part in any one conversation.”
See the full article for charts on when Twitter’s reaction was more conservative, when it nearly matched public sentiment, and more.
The Content Crash [from Mitch Joel]
“. . .there is a common thought in the digital universe that goes like this: create relevant content and consumers will continue to connect with your brand. It’s not a zero-sum game and it’s not an all-encompassing strategy. It may be in marketers vested interest to adjust that theory to this: create relevant content and your heavy users may continue to connect with your brand.”
21 Social Media & Content Marketing Tips Tailored For Small Businesses [from Heidi Cohen]
Consists of “7 Questions Every Small Business Must Ask To Succeed” and “Actionable Marketing Tips” for each point
Dealing with Social Media Criticism: Deflect, Defy, Defend? [from KISSMetrics; written by Neil Patel]
“According to a study by RightNow, when customers did receive a response to their complaint, almost half of them were pleased by the company’s interaction, and 22% of those customers posted a positive comment about the company or brand. Keep in mind that this is the same company they were bashing just recently.”
This Week in Social Analytics #39
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
2013 U.S. Digital Future in Focus [from ComScore]
“Three social networks in particular – Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram – each gained more than 10 million visitors over the course of the year in part by catering to a desire for more visually appealing content. comScore has called this phenomenon “the rise of the visual web.” Of the three, Tumblr had the largest audience at 30.8 million visitors (up 64 percent from the prior year), while Pinterest (up 284 percent to 28.9 million visitors) and Instagram (up 284 percent to 27.4 million visitors) both shared the same outsized growth rate.”
This graph from ComScore shows the shares for time spent on each site, with Tumblr coming in second behind Facebook.
Download the full report at the link above.
In 2013, Mobile, Social Lead Shift From Traditional Media to Digital [from eMarketer]
“On the digital side, mobile and social media were the two categories expected to see the most increased attention in 2013. In fact, more than eight in 10 of those polled named mobile media as a target for increased focus, while just over three-quarters of respondents said the same for social media.”
Marketing Analytics: 20% of marketers lack data [from MarketingExperiments Blog; written by Daniel Burstein]
“A full 40% of marketers only have ‘an average amount of data,’ which does not sound like an overwhelming vote of confidence they have the information they need to intelligently plan, and execute, tests that will help them learn more about their customers.”
An Autopsy of a Dead Social Network [from MIT Technology Review; written by The Physics arXiv Blog]
“They say that when the costs–the time and effort–associated with being a member of a social network outweigh the benefits, then the conditions are ripe for a general exodus. The thinking is that if one person leaves, then his or her friends become more likely to leave as well and this can cascade through the network causing a collapse in membership.”
It also depends on how large each user’s network of friends is. Overall a fascinating read on the death of Friendster.
Social Media and Branding: Is It Worth The Money? [from Heidi Cohen's Blog; written by Heidi Cohen]
“This research underscores the need for brand marketers to go beyond considering social media in the traditional sense of being a media entity. It’s more than a place to post and distribute promotional messages. Social media requires being social. To this end, brands must engage with their prospects, customers and fans as humans and understand why they’re on social media.”
6 Tips on How to Use Twitter’s New Vine Video App for Marketing [from JeffBullas.com; written by Jeff Bullas]
What to do with 6 seconds of marketing video time.
Friday fun with hypotheticals:
How many unique English tweets are possible? How long would it take for the population of the world to read them all out loud? [From What If?; written by Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd]
“Reading all the tweets takes you ten thousand eternal years. That’s enough time to watch all of human history unfold, from the invention of writing to the present, with each day lasting as long as it takes for the bird to wear down a mountain. 140 characters may not seem like a lot, but we will never run out of things to say.”
And a bonus, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of this:
5 Tips for Avoiding SM Burnout [from Social Media Today; written by Rachel Strella]
This Week in Social Analytics #38
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
12 Best Twitter Tutorial Videos of All Time [from Social Media Today; written by Daniel Zeevi]
A great resource for beginners, or anyone who wants a back-to-basics brush-up
The Geography of Happiness According to 10 Million Tweets [from The Atlantic; written by Alexis C. Madrigal]
“Sorry, Louisiana, you are the saddest state. And Hawaii (shocker!) you are the happiest.”
Pew’s fact tank studies American social networking [from Phys Org; written by Nancy Owano]
”As for Twitter, the percentage of Internet users on Twitter doubled since November 2010, now at 16%.”
Get the full report here.
Tumblr Beat Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn for SocNet Time Spent in December [from Marketing Charts; written by Marketing Charts staff]
“Tumblr outstrips Pinterest despite not having significantly more unique visitors. For 2012 as a whole, Tumblr sported an audience of 30.8 million visitors (up 64% year-over-year), but was closely followed by Pinterest (28.9 million, up 284% year-over-year), and Instagram (27.4 million, also up 284%). In December 2012, it ranked 10th among the largest social networking sites and forums, as measured by market share of visits.”
Tumblr Draws a Distinction Between its Ads and Those of Google and Facebook [from AdWeek; written by Mike Shields]
“This really hasn’t been a huge issue,” Karp added. “This industry is so bored of display, bored of blue links, so excited to create ads that win awards, that really tell stories, that make customers, that people remember, that get people excited, that you can put in your portfolio. There aren’t a lot of AdWords ads or display ads that you can put in a portfolio.”
This Week in Social Analytics #37
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
7 social media lessons from the Grammys for organizers of other events [from CNET news; written by Sree Sreenivasan]
What the Grammys did well, and what they could do better.
Big Data And The Landfills Of The Digital Enterprise [from ReadWrite; written by Matt Asay]
It’s okay not to have The Big Data Answer.
Marketing Analytics: 4 techniques to discuss with your data analysts [from Marketing Experiments Blog; written by Daniel Burstein]
“Recent research in the MarketingSherpa 2013 Marketing Analytics Benchmark Report indicates 48% of marketers are using analytics platforms to customize reports, but only 24% are creating and testing hypotheses.”
How US Consumers Value Online Media [PDF from The Boston Consulting Group; authored by Jean-Manuel Izaret, John Rose, Neal Zuckerman & Paul Zwillenberg]
“U.S. consumers realize large and growing value from online media. In fact, they now derive more value from online media—net of the associated costs— than they receive from offline media, according to new research by The Boston Consulting Group. We call this measure of value ‘consumer surplus’ and, for online media, it amounts on average to approximately $970 per U.S. connected consumer, or online user, per year—or about 2.5 percent of the average annual income in the U.S.
The highest surplus ($311), accounting for about one-third of the online total, comes from UGC and social networks accessed through such platforms as Facebook and YouTube.”
Great Social Media Requires a Bigger Trash Can [from Social Media Explorer; written by Nichole Kelly]
”That’s right, I said it. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Vine or any other social media channel you are using will NOT generate success for your company. Ridiculously amazing content is what generates success.”
26 Ways to Market Your Business With Tumblr [from Social Media Examiner; written by Debbie Hemley]
SME’s post takes a look at 26 businesses with a presence on Tumblr and discusses the techniques they use on the platform, in addition to breaking down some of Tumblr’s features and lexicon. (Of course, we disagree with the assertion that only visually based brands belong on Tumblr.)
Social Media, Take Note of the Echograph Acquisition [from Social Media Today; written by Ioannis Tsiokos]
Echograph: somewhere between Vine and the GIF?
This Week in Social Analytics #36
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Game Over: Twitter Mentioned In 50% Of Super Bowl Commercials, Facebook Only 8%, Google+ Shut Out [from MarketingLand; written by Matt McGee]
“According to my count, Twitter was mentioned in 26 of 52 national TV commercials — that’s 50 percent of the spots that aired during CBS’ game coverage. Facebook was mentioned in only four of those commercials — about eight percent. Google+, which is reportedly the No. 2 social network in the world, wasn’t mentioned at all.”
Time-Saving Tips for Social Media Marketing [from Social Media Today; written by Chris Street]
Do you use these tactics? Or do you employ others?
5 Bad Social Media Analytics [from Business 2 Community; written by Dr. Angela Hausman]
“Of course, there are lots of bad social media analytics used when evaluating your social media marketing campaign. Commonly, they’re used either because they’re easy to measure or because someone THINKS they have some meaning in evaluating the success of your social media marketing. Here are just 5 examples of really BAD social media analytics.”
Murder, Execution & Other Strategic Plans for Ambitious CMOs [from Social Media Explorer; written by Barry Feldman]
Kill what isn’t working for your company.
Social Media is like coffee. . . [from Web Analytics Demystified; written by Eric T. Peterson]
“* Footnote: I cannot live without coffee, nor would I try … but I know some people who can.”
And a bonus long read, full of culture & history: The Wheel of the Devil: On Vine, gifs, and the power of the loop [from The Machine Starts; written by Chris Baraniuk]
“While visual loops have been in existence for centuries, they have arguably enjoyed special attention over the last hundred years. In this essay I want to consider the purpose and power of the loop. I also intend to propose that the reign of the loop is greatly empowered by digital media, and that today loops have enriched culture while offering new perspectives on the nature of reality.”
This Week in Social Analytics #35
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
What Happens When You Double Your Tweeting Frequency? [from Social Media Today; written by Steven Shattuck]
“Conclusion: Tweeting twice as often had little effect on follower growth and slightly increased interaction while more than doubling referral traffic. Tweet as often only if you maintain a high standard of content quality and usefulness.”
Google+ surpasses Twitter to take number 2 social network after Facebook [from PhoneArena.com; written by Maxwell R.]
“That works out to about 343 million active users of Google+, and a little under 300 million active users for Twitter and YouTube.”
What exactly constitutes an “active user” isn’t defined in this piece, however.
What Twitter Really Looks Like [from The Atlantic; written by Megan Garber]
“But it’s also a reminder of the global scale of Twitter — and of the fact that Twitter has its own inclinations and energies. What’s maybe most striking about Tweetping is its presentation of data in pulses and punctuations: boomboomboomboom-PAUSE. That’s largely an accident of interface, but it also suggests something profound about Twitter and the social web: This stuff has a beat. It has rhythms and rushes and respites. It’s its own kind of organism, with its own kind of pulses — its own kind of heartbeat.”
Study Says Twitter Is Fastest-Growing Social Platform in the World [from Mashable; written by Anita Li]
“The number of active users on the microblogging service grew 40% from the second quarter to the fourth quarter of 2012 — equal to 288 million monthly active users, according to Global Web Index, a syndicated market-research service on web behavior and social media. (The index assessed 31 markets, and defines ‘active’ as those who claim to ‘have used or contributed to Twitter in the past month.’)”
95% Of Online Conversations About TV Take Place On Twitter [STATS] [from All Twitter; written by Shea Bennett]
“Moreover, 40 percent of all Twitter traffic around peak time is about TV.”
Tumblr – Untapped Marketing Goldmine [from ClickZ; written by Ekaterina Walter]
“Even if your business isn’t image- or product-based, Tumblr enables you to share images that relate to your demographic.”
You Can No Longer Pay to Pin Content on Tumblr [from Mashable; written by Fernando Alfonso III]
“Over the past six months, response to the pin feature has been mostly negative, with people claiming to unfollow users who used the feature.”
Facebook Tries Letting You Share Emoticons Of Exactly What You’re Feeling, Reading Or Eating [from TechCrunch; written by Josh Constine]
“Along with being fun for users, it could be a big help to advertisers, though Facebook tells me it’s not piping this data into its ad engine just yet. By selecting your current activity instead of merely writing it out, you structure data for Facebook. That could eventually help it to connect you with advertisers who want to reach people who frequently watch TV and movies, or listen to music, or eat at restaurants.”
This Week in Social Analytics #34
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Are You Marketing Your Marketing? [from Social Media Explorer; written by Jason Falls]
“Or, to put it somewhat differently, the social media world is not one of, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ It’s a world where you have to build it, then tell everyone in the world about it a dozen times, then some of them will come.”
Twitter Tips for Proper Use by Brands [from Social Media Today; written by Amanda Ashworth]
“People are looking for better, faster and more personalised means of communicating with brands. Research from Gartner in late 2012 forecasted that social networks will become a primary form of customer communication by 2014 and will be viewed as the minimum form of response. This is hardly surprising when ample research from Socialbakers also suggests that Twitter is 400% more effective at engaging consumers than Facebook.”
How Twitter’s new embeds will make social media’s copyright issues even weirder [from PandoDaily; written by David Holmes]
“Ostensibly, that means all you’d need to do is embed the Tweet containing the copyrighted photo to avoid copyright infringement.”
Twitter CEO Shows Off New Way to Share Videos in Tweets [from Mashable; written by Seth Fiegerman]
“If Costolo’s tweet is any indication, it appears Twitter is planning to integrate Vine to allow users to embed short clips in their tweets in the same way that Twitter now lets users create and share Instagram-style photos in tweets.”
Do We Need Social Media Education in Schools Now? [from Social Media Today; written by Chris Syme]
“The recent story of Manti Te’o is a perfect example of education without learning. He knew how to use social media, but didn’t understand its power. Have we failed the next generation by equipping them with all the bells and whistles to get connected without teaching them how to use those tools responsibly?”
It’s Time to Cut Back on Social Media [from Harvard Business Review; written by Dorie Clark]
“That doesn’t mean doing less overall or abandoning new media. But it does speak to a desire to prune and focus on the platforms that have the most impact.”
4 Brands that are taking Tumblr by storm [from iMedia; written by our co-founder Jenn Deering Davis]
“There is a social network, ranked among the top 10 sites in the U.S., that has a growing user base of 170 million people who create 70 million new posts each day and are actively seeking new content. And your brand probably hasn’t tapped into it yet. Interested?”
Why 2013 is the Year You Need to Get Serious About Tumblr [from Forbes; written by our co-founder & CEO Hayes Davis]
“Tumblr is a highly visual experience, so brands can appeal to us on a visceral level through stunning images or animated GIFs that capture brief, emotional moments. This kind of visual storytelling has been missing from digital advertising, but is what we’ve come to expect from the best TV ads. Tumblr makes that kind of brand experience finally possible online.”
This Week in Social Analytics #33
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Social Media Marketing: Tumblr Touts Its Value to Its Users and Brands [from Brand Channel; written by Sheila Shayon]
“Marketers are definitely looking to other social networks beyond Facebook,” said a spokesman for eMarketer to the Post, “not because Facebook is ineffective but because the digital audience is more fragmented than ever before.”
Lost On New Myspace. Can’t Escape Justin. Send Help. [from TechCrunch; written by Sarah Perez]
“But I want to really discover. Maybe it gets better when you add friends, I think. Maybe then, like Spotify, you can peer into what other people are listening to. Otherwise, I’m probably going to end up playing 90′s rock, reminiscing, hoping for a grunge comeback.”
Facebook explains how to optimize your business Page for Graph Search [from The Next Web; written by Emil Protalinski]
“Facebook says Graph Search will make it easier for people to discover your Page and learn more about your business. Whether that will indeed be the case remains to be seen, but if you want to stay ahead of the game then you should take the new feature seriously.”
What Facebook’s Graph Search Means for Marketers [from Social Media Explorer; written by Jason Falls]
“For marketers, though, this evolution of the Facebook ecosystem of utility means one thing: You should have been investing in social media marketing all along. Without a strong social presence, particularly on Facebook, your business is not going to have the requisite recommendations, referrals and content necessary to trip this new search mechanism. If you don’t have much presence or traction there now, you’d better get some and fast.”
Instagram Reports 90M Monthly Active Users, 40M Photos Per Day And 8500 Likes Per Second [from TechCrunch; written by Darrell Etherington]
“For perspective, Facebook itself has 37,037 combined Likes and comments per second, according to stats released by the company in August when you break down the daily average they reported at the time. Instagram’s 9,500 similar actions per second definitely trail, but are nonetheless impressive given that Instagram is mobile-only and a much younger service.”
Socializing Your CEO 2013 [from Weber Shandwick]
“Among other findings, the study revealed that sociability of world’s largest company CEOs has nearly doubled – from 36% in 2010 to 66% in 2012.”
7 Things You MUST Understand When Leveraging Social Proof in Your Marketing Efforts [from KISSmetrics; written by Gregory Ciotti]
“In 2013 and beyond, social proof will gain in importance because customers are becoming more informed all the time.”
Tweet My Fridge: The Bizarre Home Appliances of CES [from The Verge; written by Sam Byford]
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
This Week in Social Analytics #32
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
There Are 181,000 Social Media ‘Gurus,’ ‘Ninjas,’ ‘Masters,’ and ‘Mavens’ on Twitter [from AdAge; written by B.L. Ochman]
That’s up from 16,000 in 2009.
What CEOs Need to Understand About Social Media [from Social Media Explorer; written by Nichole Kelly]
“One of the key reasons social media has struggled to show ROI is because many current tracking systems only track the last thing a prospect touches before converting, but the social media conversation usually happens before this point and therefore doesn’t get any portion of the credit.”
Watch Out CNN: New Twitter Search Capabilities Will Rule Breaking News [from ReadWrite; written by Jon Mitchell]
“This contextual step is critical for making a news destination relevant. And if Twitter itself can master relevance, what’s the point of other news sites? They’re slower, and they have less information about what’s happening and what’s interesting to people. News organizations had better start thinking about how they can continue to matter in a world where Twitter is the destination, not just a pipe for sending links.”
Best Days to Post on Facebook by Industry [INFOGRAPHIC] [from Spiral 16; written by Eric Melin]
“The thing is: Not all Facebook posts are targeted at the same people, so you have to beware of ‘general research.’ about Facebook or any other social media trend. It may not apply to your industry or audience.”
Teens <3 Tumblr More Than Facebook [from Fast Company; written by Kit Eaton]
“While 55% of 13- to 18 year-olds and 52% of 19- to 25 year-olds liked Facebook for social networking interactions, supporting the conventional notion that Facebook is the world’s dominant social net, 61% of the young group and 57% of the adult group preferred Tumblr.”
Union Metrics CEO on importance of social measurement [from Biz Report; written by Kristina Knight]
Here’s an excerpt from the two-part interview with our CEO, Hayes Davis.
“‘The best ads have always reached us on an emotional level and we’ve kind of abandoned that on social networks and other parts of the web. In a couple years, I think we’ll look back on the last 10 years of tiny, mostly text-based ads as a bit of an aberration. In 2013, we’ll see brands trying to better reach their customers with interesting content combined with resonant visuals. 2012 may have been the year of the GIF, but 2013 will be the year the GIF gets down to business,’ said Davis.”